Tetris 4d

You may have played Tetris, but not like this--Tetris 4D has four-player simuplay, hence the "4D." Get it?

While system launches receive a lot of fanfair and media hype in Japan, the weeks and months following such launches historically tend to be plagued by a serious software drought. While anxiously awaiting the next big release, many software-starved early adopters turn to the jv inevitable mahjong or chess sim for diversion. Tetris 4D seems to be aimed squarely at such gamers.

Don't get us wrong--we're not saying Tetris is a bad game. (We did rank it No. 1 among the top 100 video games of all time, after all.) We're just saying it's not the graphically intensive, trouser-tightening "killer app" most Dreamcast owners have been dying to get their hands on.

judging from the title, many assumed Tetris 4D would be a trippy, stylized take on Alexey Pajitnov's classic puzzler, such as Nintendo's Tetrisphere. They couldn't be further from the truth; it's basically standard Tetris with a multi-player Battle Mode. In this mode, up to four players can test their powers of spatial relations while unleashing powerful combos on their harried opponents. Aside from this lone innovation, the game remains plain ol' Tetris. OK--it does have a funky transparent beam that helps you line up pieces, 3D backgrounds and a techno soundtrack, but that's about it.

Given Tetris' widespread availability (there are only about 40 million copies of the game floating around), don't even think about importing this one--you're better off digging up your Game Boy.